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<title>STABS: Overview</title>

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<a name="Overview"></a>
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Next: <a href="Program-Structure.html#Program-Structure" accesskey="n" rel="next">Program Structure</a>, Previous: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Top</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Symbol-Types-Index.html#Symbol-Types-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<a name="Overview-of-Stabs"></a>
<h2 class="chapter">1 Overview of Stabs</h2>

<p><em>Stabs</em> refers to a format for information that describes a program
to a debugger.  This format was apparently invented by
Peter Kessler at
the University of California at Berkeley, for the <code>pdx</code> Pascal
debugger; the format has spread widely since then.
</p>
<p>This document is one of the few published sources of documentation on
stabs.  It is believed to be comprehensive for stabs used by C.  The
lists of symbol descriptors (see <a href="Symbol-Descriptors.html#Symbol-Descriptors">Symbol Descriptors</a>) and type
descriptors (see <a href="Type-Descriptors.html#Type-Descriptors">Type Descriptors</a>) are believed to be completely
comprehensive.  Stabs for COBOL-specific features and for variant
records (used by Pascal and Modula-2) are poorly documented here.
</p>

<p>Other sources of information on stabs are <cite>Dbx and Dbxtool
Interfaces</cite>, 2nd edition, by Sun, 1988, and <cite>AIX Version 3.2 Files
Reference</cite>, Fourth Edition, September 1992, &quot;dbx Stabstring Grammar&quot; in
the a.out section, page 2-31.  This document is believed to incorporate
the information from those two sources except where it explicitly directs
you to them for more information.
</p>
<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Flow.html#Flow" accesskey="1">Flow</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">Overview of debugging information flow
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Stabs-Format.html#Stabs-Format" accesskey="2">Stabs Format</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">Overview of stab format
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="String-Field.html#String-Field" accesskey="3">String Field</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">The string field
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="C-Example.html#C-Example" accesskey="4">C Example</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">A simple example in C source
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Assembly-Code.html#Assembly-Code" accesskey="5">Assembly Code</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">The simple example at the assembly level
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